An Post has sold its two subsidiary companies in the international mobile telephone electronic top-up market to telecom services company Alphyra for €85 million.
The two companies PostTS UK and PostTS Spain were bought from the Caudwell Group for €8.5 million in February 2002. Since then An Post invested a further €7.5 million in the businesses which were returned to profit in 2004.
The sale of the companies is part of An Post's overall recovery strategy of selling non-core assets.
The acquisition of PostTS puts Alphra as Europe's largest independent payment network operator. Alphyra now operates in 15 European countries, with total transactions of approximately €3.6 billion annually.
NCB Corporate advised alphyra on the transaction and funding was provided by Alphyra's principal bankers HBOS.